


Bindings

by laEsmeralda



Series: Linnod [2]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-16 01:38:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5808286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laEsmeralda/pseuds/laEsmeralda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a brief interlude between battles, Aragorn leads Gondor and Rohan to the Black Gates wearing elven braids and new tokens. </p>
<p>According to book canon, after visiting the Houses of Healing, Aragorn decided not to enter Minas Tirith again before riding to the Black Gates. I hope to be forgiven for taking some liberty here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bindings

Bone-weariness was an unfamiliar feeling. Legolas knew it was not the enormity of his exertion in battle that weighed so heavily but the wastage of the fields. They had been all night and morning dealing with corpses and carcasses, finding far too few wounded for the Houses of Healing. He was covered with dust, his throat raw from the singing of dirges. 

He and Gimli trudged to the baths in silence. At the entry, they paused. "You should join me, Gimli, I would benefit of your company and I hear the main bath is grand."

"It is not the way of the dwarves to gambol about together naked," came the gruff reply. "It's my intent to get quickly clean and go for a drink." There was a moment of quiet. "I will hold a cup ready for you."

"I will have it," replied Legolas, bowing as Gimli turned for the row of private bathing chambers of which they had been told.

With a sigh, Legolas continued down the grand hallway where the black and white marble of formal Minas Tirith gave way to wild color. Bright blue and yellow glass tiles sparkled in the light that streamed from high windows. Patterns of geometric precision covered every surface.

He heard a frustrated masculine growl, and turning the last corner, found himself looking at a broad and muscled naked back. Hands with rough knuckles struggled with a slice of soap, trying to reach between the man's shoulder blades.

"Hail, Éomer," he ventured, not wanting to startle the man. As it was, his silent approach and the closeness of the voice did give Éomer a start. He whirled. His hair, eyebrows, and beard were soapy, foamy rills ran down his chest and belly. Legolas suppressed the raising of an eyebrow. The young man possessed a magnificent physique.

"You must learn to make some noise for our dull human ears. It is uncanny how you go about, Master Elf." 

"If you wait a moment, I will help you with that soap," Legolas replied, with a wan smile, and began removing his clothing. "Though I should worry not about wetting these garments, they are nearly beyond help. It would be better to return to my chamber in only a length of linen, but alas, our work is not yet done and there is no time for drying cloth and leather." 

"It has never been so important to me to get quit of the gore of battle." Éomer eyed Legolas up and down almost balefully. "Amazing how it doesn't cling to you."

"It clings within," returned the elf dryly, taking the soap and scrubbing Éomer's back, lifting the heavy mane to reach the man's neck. "No amount of soap and water will serve that." 

"I well understand." Nothing else need be said on the subject. Yesterday evening, Éomer's sister had gone to the healers and his uncle to the cool of the catacombs. Usually stoic to a fault, he was softer at the moment, his gruffness blunted by exhaustion and grief. With the grime, he was washing away pale tracks worn through it by weeping.

Legolas lifted the bucket and doused Éomer. Darkened water sluiced to the drain. He refilled at the tap and returned to rinse him again. "I heard that you took two oliphaunts down with one javelin yesterday before we arrived. A battle feat worthy of song." 

Éomer shook the water from his eyes. "I thank you for your kind words. I watched you take one with your bare hands."

"Not bare, my knives and bow each served as did luck and helpful friends."

"Still, it was noteworthy. I was certain you would fall and feared for it."

"I thank you for your confidence in me," quipped Legolas.

Éomer shook his head, feeling he lacked the speed of thought necessary to keep up with the banter. He marveled at the lightness of spirit he felt in the elf's presence, as though the being relieved sorrow by his mere breath. "It is unusual for one prince to attend another, is it not?"

Legolas shrugged and poured a bucket of water over himself. "With no squires about, we are reduced to it. What is to be done?" He proffered the soap. "Return the kindness?"

"You never speak of your rank," Éomer continued, his hands firm even in their attempt to be easy. 

Legolas smiled to himself that Éomer indeed had the touch of a horseman. He felt gentled and groomed like a colt, not at all unpleasantly. "It means little in my world. I am youngest and interested in other things."

"I too am youngest and interested in other things," mused Éomer, "yet I am proud of my rank. Such are the lives of men. Though, I would have given my own life not to receive my inheritance yet." His voice thickened with the return of grief, and he changed his line of thought for another. "You have fine bones, my friend, like our fleetest messenger filly," he remarked, kneeling and soaping unbidden down the long legs, "but they feel as solid as those of my warhorse. 'Tis no wonder Arod can carry double and run with the best, though your shield-mate outweighs you."

His comments free of eroticism. Éomer touched as an expert in breeding notes the frame of a fine animal, and Legolas grinned to think that next the man might check his feet for stones. The elf reached to lather well with the soap and then ran his hands into his hair. "Oh, fie!"

Éomer looked up. "What troubles?"

"I failed to unbraid first."

"Wait, let me, you're tangled already."

This was how Gandalf and Aragorn found them, with Éomer standing close and frowning as he picked out the strands from bindings now swollen with water. Legolas had soap in his eyes but could hear the new arrivals despite their lack of conversation.

Gandalf entered in front of Aragorn and therefore missed the ranger's look of surprised horror, quickly masked.

"My lords," Legolas ventured, causing Éomer again to look up startled, "forgive my blind greeting but my braid has undone me."

"Legolas, Éomer," Aragorn said gravely. 

"Gandalf," Éomer bowed to him, then to Aragorn, "My Liege."

Aragorn accepted the obeisance without argument as to its prematurity.

A warm chortle came from Gandalf as he disrobed. "Undaunted by the Paths of the Dead, orcs, Haradrim, and mumakil. Cast to his knees by a tangle."

"I remain standing," retorted the elf. He was still trying to understand the chill in Aragorn's voice.

"Ah, it is loosed," Éomer exclaimed. He found himself strangely elated with such a small success, a bit of care given to a battle-brother when there was no other help to be sought or given for more serious matters. 

"Thank you for your assistance," came the sober reply. As Éomer stepped back, Legolas rinsed his face and opened his eyes to catch Aragorn's following the younger man as he strode to the side of the bath and knelt there. The look in those grey eyes was not of admiration but a kind of anxiety--a familiar human expression worn while observing a perceived rival. Legolas was startled. He went on soaping, trying to decide how best to respond to what Aragorn thought he had seen.

Éomer carefully washed and rinsed the bindings and laid them next to Legolas' belt and boots, trying to read the different textures and colors chosen. 

There was a fine and bright blue length of elvish silk, to his eyes, clearly given by a woman. Legolas had not spoken of a beloved, so she was a mystery. Next, he noted a strand of sturdy homespun, stained with travel, and this wrinkled his brow. It was of the same fabric that Merry and Pippin wore. A story weaver himself, he construed it a token worn for the Ring-bearer's safety. There was a long, thin roll of silver, which he soon saw was a living leaf, curled around itself and miraculously uncrushed. This he believed a keepsake of a distant forest home. The outer binding was a broken bowstring, black, and therefore not of Legolas' bow. For this, like the lady, he had no explanation.

He had not noticed before that Legolas wore such things as the archer was plainly garbed. Having removed the threads himself, Éomer now understood that they were worn to the inside of the braid, not as display, but remembrance.

Gandalf made do with a quick rinse and was first in the pool, declaring it the perfect medicine for weary bones. Éomer was next, sighing with comfort. When it was safe to do so, Legolas caught Aragorn's eye and attempted a reassuring smile. Steady eyes gazed back, and Aragorn gave a small nod before they followed the other two.  
*******

Late in the night, a pause was taken in toasts and songs to the fallen that would continue for many days. 

Legolas stepped around Gimli's pallet where the dwarf already snored, and passed by his own bedding to the door of Aragorn's chamber. Not satisfied to let the pages make the arrangements, Gimli had laid out their gear himself and lay ready in his clothing to address any disturbance. 

Legolas went in, knowing that Aragorn lingered in the great hall. He checked the room, then outside the windows, under the bed, within the wardrobe. When he knew all to be clear of danger, he undressed and slipped in among the sleeping furs. These had traveled with Aragorn as a gift from Theoden, wrought for certain by Éowyn's pining hands. Surrounded by Aragorn's scent, he fell into meditation.  
*******

Aragorn exchanged a few words with Gimli, again suggesting that there was no need to guard his door. Gimli snorted and rolled over. "Aragorn, have you learned nothing of the stubbornness of elves?" 

With a chuckle, Aragorn entered the room and barred the door behind him. Despite his easy manner, he was much troubled by the empty pallet across from Gimli. The young Marshal of the Mark had left the hall earlier, followed soon thereafter by Legolas. Aragorn could smell the familiar scent of young forest still lingering in his nose from the quiet goodnight of clasped shoulders. He would swear it was stronger now at the mere thought of that touch.

The sight of Éomer in the baths, rough-hewn and golden, with his hands so softly on Legolas, unbinding his hair, still burned Aragorn's thoughts. Then, the two had stood together, almost shoulder to shoulder, as plans were discussed for the march on the Black Gate. At dinner, Éomer had sat with Legolas and Gimli as the three drank and devised songs for Theoden. 

Oddly, he felt it would serve him rightly for pulling away from his friend, but the thought was not without pain. It had been weeks since he had allowed the archer's intimate touch, longer since he had felt it without anxiety. 

Two nights ago, on the corsair, he had declared love by words on what he thought might be the eve of last battle. "Is it not strange that an educated man knows his heart is not the locus of love, yet it manifests the hurt as if pierced?" Aragorn had whispered against the white neck as they held each other in a stolen moment, the wind pressing them on to horrors untold. Aragorn had then placed Legolas' hand over his heart. "If I die tomorrow, know that I love you, that I have ached for you every day since I met you." The memory of those words now made the emptiness larger. 

They had toiled in carnage and its aftermath all through the next night and this morning, with hardly a glance between them, their sense of one another not requiring eyes. But he had rebuffed Legolas' approach outside the healing house. No, he could not blame him for turning to the young rider for comfort.

As Aragorn turned to the unfamiliar bed, his doubts washed away. A silver pour of limbs and hair spilled along the furs; moonlight glinted off a half-covered curve of rump. The vision stirred and lifted its head. A sharp line of nose defined itself in the low light. Legolas remained silent, waiting, his call strong enough that his voice was not needed.

In a few moments, Aragorn was naked and sliding in to curl himself against the warm flesh. Their mouths met with fever and anguished noises. They thrust against one another, urgent and hungry, until Legolas stopped to turn him. Mouth to slick hardness they cast a circle and soon came together with shuddering force. It was over too quickly.

They moved again to lie with foreheads pressed together in silence. "Jealousy does not become me, I know," said Aragorn at last.

"Nay, but seeing it in you gave me the boldness to enter here and wait for you tonight."

Aragorn wondered why his words on the ship had not been enough. "You think men say things rashly before death that we do not mean."

"I think that love yields for a King's duty--whether the kingdom be elven or human or the unity of both--and so will I yield."

Aragorn did not answer, but held him fiercely.  
*******

The next morning, Aragorn rode at the head of the muster, his hair bound back with the inverted braids of the elder race, sparkling with strings of jet beads from Isildur's coffers. A tiny flash of bright blue and silver could be seen beneath the dark locks when stirred by the wind. Word spread that Aragorn wore the braids out of thanks for the reforged blade with which he brought forth the armies of the dead, and to honor those who had raised him in secret. 

Legolas, with Gimli, rode a sword-stroke near as always. His braid now lacked Arwen's gift of thread and his own tunic had yielded a silver one. This secret went to battle with only two to know it.  
*******


End file.
